“Excellent! and I trust that the promises were followed up; I desire, as you know, that no promise should ever be made in my name without being kept.”
“Without a moment’s loss of time, our two privateers, and your own horses, were placed at the disposal of the officers; the keys of the principal mansion were handed over to them, so that they made up hunting-parties, and walking excursions with such ladies as are to be found in Belle-Isle; and such other as they are enabled to enlist from the neighborhood, who have no fear of seasickness.”
“And there is a fair sprinkling to be met with at Sarzeau and Vannes, I believe, Your Eminence?”
“Yes; in fact all along the coast,” said Aramis, quietly.
“And now, how about the soldiers?”
“Everything precisely the same, in a relative degree, you understand; the soldiers have plenty of wine, excellent provisions, and good pay.”
“Very good; so that—”
“So that this garrison can be depended upon, and it is a better one than the last.”
“Good.”
“The result is, if Fortune favors us, so that the garrisons are changed in this manner, only every two months, that, at the end of every three years, the whole army will, in its turn, have been there; and, therefore, instead of having one regiment in our favor, we shall have fifty thousand men.”
“Yes, yes; I knew perfectly well,” said Fouquet, “that no friend could be more incomparable and invaluable than yourself, my dear Monsieur d’Herblay; but,” he added, laughing, “all this time we are forgetting our friend, Du Vallon; what has become of him? During the three days I spent at Saint-Mandé, I confess I have forgotten him completely.”
“I do not forget him, however,” returned Aramis. “Porthos is at Saint-Mandé; his joints are kept well greased, the greatest care is being taken care of him with regard to the food he eats, and the wines he drinks; I advise him to take daily airings in the small park, which you have kept for your own use, and he makes us of it accordingly. He begins to walk again, he exercises his muscular powers by bending down young elm-trees, or making the old oaks fly into splinters, as Milo of Crotona used to do; and, as there are no lions in the park, it is not unlikely we shall find him alive. Porthos is a brave fellow.”
“Yes, but in the meantime he will get bored to death.”
“Oh, no; he never does that.”
“He will be asking questions?”
“He sees no one.”
“At all events, he is looking or hoping for something or another.”
“I have inspired in him a hope which we will realize some fine morning, and on that he subsists.”
“What is it?”
“That of being presented to the king.”
“Oh! in what character?”
“As the engineer of Belle-Isle, of course.”
“Is it possible?”
“Quite true.”
“Shall we not be obliged, then, to send him back to Belle-Isle?”
“Most certainly; I am even thinking of sending him as soon as possible. Porthos is very fond of display; he is man whose weakness d’Artagnan, Athos, and myself are alone acquainted with; he never commits himself in any way; he is dignity itself; to the officers there, he would seem like a Paladin of the time of the Crusades. He would make the whole staff drunk, without getting tipsy in the least himself, and everyone will regard him with admiration and sympathy; if, therefore, it should happen that we have any orders requiring to be carried out, Porthos is an incarnation of the order itself, and whatever he chose to do others would find themselves obliged to submit to.”
“Send him back, then.”
“That is what I intend to do; but only in a few days; for I must not omit to tell you one thing.”
“What is it?”
“I begin to mistrust d’Artagnan. He is not at Fontainebleau, as you may have noticed, and d’Artagnan is never absent, or apparently idle, without some object in view. And now that my own affairs are settled, I am going to try and ascertain what the affairs are in which d’Artagnan is engaged.”
“Your own affairs are settled, you say?”
“Yes.”
“You are very fortunate in that case, then, and I should like to be able to say the same.”
“I hope you do not make yourself uneasy.”
“Hum!”
“Nothing could be better than the king’s reception of you.”
“True.”
“And Colbert leaves you in peace.”
“Nearly so.”
“In that case,” said Aramis, with that connection of ideas which marked him, “in that case, then, we can bestow a thought upon the young girl I was speaking to you about yesterday.”
“Whom do you mean?”
“What, have you forgotten already? I mean La Vallière.”
“Ah! of course, of course.”
“Do you object, then, to try and make a conquest of her?”
“In one respect only; my heart is engaged in another direction, and I positively do not care about the girl in the least.”
“Oh, oh!” said Aramis, “your heart is engaged, you say. The deuce! we must take care of that.”
“Why?”
“Because it is terrible to have the heart occupied, when others, besides yourself, have so much need of the head.”
“You are right. So you see, at your first summons, I left everything. But to return to this girl. What good do you see in my troubling myself about her?”
“This.—The king, it is said, has taken a fancy to her; at least, so it is supposed.”
“But you, who know everything, know very differently.”
“I know that the king is greatly and suddenly changed; that the day before yesterday he was crazy over Madame; that a few days ago, Monsieur complained of it, even to the queen-mother; and that some conjugal misunderstandings and maternal scoldings
